


Away from Violent Water

by Silberias



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Multi, archive warning is for Lysa/Jon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 18:36:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5175101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silberias/pseuds/Silberias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lysa knows she can stay--and await to see if she carries a son for her husband--or she can run. All she knows is she would rather die than let Jon Arryn come to her ever again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Away from Violent Water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alijah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alijah/gifts).



> Because Alijah puts these ideas in my head and you all have to deal with them as I work through this writer's block. Title is from "She'll Drive the Big Car" by David Bowie. 
> 
> This story is marked as rape/non-con because it is told from Lysa's POV and her thoughts on her relationship (such that it is) with Jon Arryn. Also, little Rhaenys makes an appearance but not her brother because Elia could only save one. Because of reasons. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Grand Maester Pycelle was a Lannister man if he ever was anything--and to that end it served him to prevent any strong heirs to the House of Arryn to be born. Lysa might have once been horrified at it, but night after night under the rutting of her toothless husband taught her better. It was a trifle to get the Grand Maester to prescribe her roots and herbs to '3aid' in fertility when in reality she prayed hard for every turn of the moon to bring her blood.

Sometimes it was normal enough.

Other times it was thick and painful--the bleeding intense as she lost each babe that her husband forced into her.

When Jon bedded her it was nothing like it was with Petyr. To be sure Petyr had not done much to avoid giving her pain but he had at least kissed her cheek or her forehead as he pounded himself into her. Jon expected her legs spread, roughly opening them if she didn't have them already open--slapping her if she dared try to keep them shut. It was a wife's duty, he would sternly say to her even as she cried.

Lysa thought she might die when Maester Coleman found out she'd been getting moon tea from Grand Maester Pycelle. This child would take, she knew as Jon had the Grand Maester tried for murdering the Heirs of Arryn--her husband at least still had use of her, and had believed her when she'd said that she had trusted the 'kindly' old maester and did not know what he had given her. He had kissed her forehead at the hairline and said she should pray daily to the Seven that Pycelle had not murdered another of their children--his hand had swept across her belly as he spoke, patting her before he turned to his other business.

She wept that evening, telling her maids that she was grateful her husband had saved their child and they should leave her to her prayers in private. In truth she had dashed about her room, as quickly as she could, gathering up some clothes and then stealing through a secret passage from the Tower of the Hand into the city. It opened into a whorehouse, she knew, but was well prepared for that--a little eyepaint and lipstain was enough to get her through and out to the streets.

From there she made her way to the docks, and from there onto a very specific ship to Dorne. She'd asked one of the whores, before she left, if there were any 'safe' ships to sail on and been provided with a name. Stormbearer, leaving on the next good tide to Salt Shore. There were places in Dorne where a woman could hide, where the men hid her without question, complaint, or lewd demands. Lysa did not know, she readily admitted to herself as the ship set sail a few hours before dawn, if such tales were true. But she was well convinced that anywhere at all was better than whimpering and crying under Jon Arryn as he sought to drag a son from her womb.

The ship's captain, a woman of advancing age with white hair and violet eyes, offered to give her moon tea when she discovered a week or so later that Lysa was with child. She was sorely tempted, having gotten used to the various brews that Pycelle had provided for her and she'd long ago lost her fear of the stuff. But if Jon were to track her to this ship, to Dorne, she would need to have his heir intact--her scapegoating of Pycelle was a one-use miracle now that the man's head was on a spike.

"Mam won't get caught," Lysa jumped and nearly fell at the sudden presence of a girl, no more than six or seven years old.

"Excuse me?" Lysa asked, tugging her cloak a little tighter about her shoulders and wishing the hair dyes had worked better than merely darkening her Tully red locks.

"Mam put in that she was running lemons from Dorne to the Vale, stopping in to pay tax to the King. 'S the other way 'round milady," the girl said, tugging on one silvery white braid with a playful smile that revealed a few missing teeth. She had violet eyes too.

"Lemons don't grow in the Vale, stupid," a young man said as he came up, grabbing onto the girl's shoulder and pulling her back away from Lysa a few inches. He was tall, making it hard to distinguish how old he truly was though his voice squeaked terribly enough to convince Lysa that he wasn't much older than fourteen or fifteen.

"Well they still got it wrong, even if it's candles from Wicky," the girl protested, shaking free of her temporary capture and sidling close to Lysa once more. "Mam prays by the light of a Wicky candle at night, always the same--"

"Neary!" the boy hissed, cuffing her head.

"Neary, Ryss, to me," the captain's voice startled all three of them then. Lysa even felt the babe in her belly twitch and spasm in fear of the woman. As the two children started towards their mother, though, Lysa took the little girl's hand and squeezed it.

"Wickenden candles are the best to pray by, especially the cinnamon ones." The child's face lit up brightly and she nodded even as her brother dragged her towards the captain's quarters. Captain Visaena's violet eyes watched Lysa warily for many days after that and she hoped the woman wouldn't throw her overboard for what might be inferred by a bright mind.

The Lysa Tully who had thought to one day win her husband's respect by being dutiful to him might have turned them in. The Lysa Arryn who had endured that man's attentions for nearly six years knew how to keep her mouth shut. It mattered little to her whether or not Stannis Baratheon had lied to his brother and let Queen Rhaella, Prince Viserys, and the rumored Princess Daenerys to live. A certain laughing part of her wondered if her silence might buy her leniency should the Targaryens ever come to power once more.

Dorne was hot--she knew it long before she ever stepped foot there for the ship began to nearly bake in the sunlight as they sailed ever southwards. Captain Visaena decreed that Lysa was to rest in the Captain's quarters, leaving little Neary to wave a fan at her. There had been a certain motherly tenderness to the captain as she checked in on Lysa occasionally and Lysa remembered hearing stories of Queen Rhaella's lost babes. They had both been married to terrible men.

"Does your lover wait for you in Dorne? Is that why you took a switch-ship?" the captain asked one night, both of them sweltering in the room despite having the windows open and small fans close at hand.

Lysa stared up at the ceiling for a long while, resisting rubbing her belly for it only brought her painful memories--both those of Jon Arryn but also those of her first babe. A daughter. Murdered for the soldiers Jon Arryn dangled before his two foster sons. A bastard ranked far lower in Hoster Tully's mind than being grandfather to the lords of the North, Vale, and Riverlands.

"He picks up the scraps I can convince my husband to give him. He has not touched me since before I wed, though, and I--" tears flooded her eyes and spilled down her temples, "--I do not think he is my lover any longer. He never lifted a finger despite...despite..."

"The men of Dorne call it rape whatever the justification offered," Visaena said quietly when Lysa's sobs quieted somewhat, "drunkenness, rage, jealousy, marital right--they call it rape, and they punish such men as all rapers are punished in Westeros. We think them backward for it, too, and there is no telling how long it will take you to accept their way of thinking on the matter. But you have escaped, which is more than one can say for many women."

With that they sank into silence and did not speak again before Lysa drifted off to sleep. She dreamed of a man with a clever smile and laughing eyes and woke up wanting the sort of heady love--or at least affection and lust--that she'd known just a few short years ago. She would have to settle for spoiling the child that grew in her, for she intended on selling her fine things and plying a trade as a seamstress to some fine Dornish lady. There would be enough to give her babe lemoncakes and soft pillows, not much more but those would be enough.

The Salt Shore was the holding of Lady Gargalen, the daughter of old Lord Tremond, and from there Lysa knew she could make her way to anywhere in Dorne. Sitting with Neary on the deck near the ship's wheel, Lysa traced out with a nub of hard soap an approximate map of Dorne. She had always excelled at remembering the locations, houses, and heads of house as a girl and that had only improved during her time in King's Landing. The little girl at her side was also a boon, chattering on and helping Lysa focus on accomplishing her goal of disappearing.

Someday her own son or daughter would be as blissfully unaware of their mother's past, and she rejoiced in it.

A bit of her worried over what Cat would think. Cat, who had never miscarried or had a babe born dead. Cat, whose husband was honorable and kind according to all who met him. Cat, who had four children now--two sons, two daughters. Cat, whose only woe in life was a single war-bastard brought to her home by Lord Stark. Her elder sister did not live a life where she might understand Lysa's actions.

"Are you going to live in Vaith? Mother says you should go on to Godsgrace. Then you can access the river, and then the sea. She says the sea is the only place where ambush women can be free," Neary said, tracing a skinny finger from Salt Shore to the route she spoke of.

"Ambitious, Neary," Captain Visaena's voice sounded above them, distracted but warm.

"Ambush is when you take men by surprise," Lysa said, patting Neary's cheek. The child shrugged the corrections off, taking the nub of soap and drawing some sort of sea monster in the Sea of Dorne. She was quite a dreamer--there was an epic poem, one of the few surviving after the Doom, called 'E Daen' that when translated was simply The Dream. Lord Stannis had reported that Queen Rhaella's last act had been to name her daughter Daenerys II Targaryen.

"Though," there was amusement in Visaena's voice, "it does take men by surprise when their women prove ambitious. A bit of an ambush, in a way." Lysa giggled, thinking that by that definition she had ambushed Jon Arryn with her escape. Would he have decided she'd been kidnapped? It had been a few years since she'd resisted his advances, and she had played innocent and grateful to him the last he'd seen of her. Would he blame the Lannisters, search out some accomplice of Pycelle's? Lysa decided not to care.

At the Salt Shore they exited the ship on a rowboat. Visaena and Ryss rowed a double set of oars and Neary sat at the front of the small boat pretending to be a ship's figurehead. A small group of people waited for them on the shore--a few men and women, a tiny girl racing towards them through the surf as the rowboat snubbed into the sand.

"Anyse!" Neary shouted, tumbling into the surf and coming up with barely a sputter--pelting herself into the arms of the other girl. The Dornish girl was slim and probably about twelve, her dark hair fluttering in lovely curls behind her as she grabbed Neary and spun into a circle with the younger girl.

"Is Auntie okay? Is she here?" Lysa only caught a few of the questions that Neary rattled off, distracted as Ryss helped her out of the rowboat and into the warm saltwater that lapped at her shins. Her feet wobbled a bit under her and the boy kept an arm around her waist as he walked her up the beach towards the party who greeted them.

Captain Visaena strode confidently towards two men and the woman who stood between them. One man was aging, silver streaking his black hair liberally, and he opened his arms widely--wrapping them securely around Visaena's shoulders, pressing a long kiss to the side of her head as he held her. The woman stood, steadied by her companion, and greeted Visaena cordially enough though did not move for an embrace. The silvery captain did not seem to expect one, though, and merely nodded in return.

"My nuncle came to meet you, he wanted to see how you've grown," the girl Anyse was saying to Neary as they skipped up.

"Lady Shaena says that I'm small for my age--she thought me to be five when she first met me!" Neary pointed at Lysa, using the name that the captain had made up for her before she'd ever stepped foot on the boat. You are to be Shaena, we'll dye your hair once we've left Blackwater Bay and turned for Dorne. Is that agreeable Shaena? Lysa had only been able to nod, weeks ago.

"That is a lie," Captain Visaena said, breaking from the tight embrace she'd lingered in with the Dornishman, "she asked you and then remarked that you were shorter than most your age. Do not make others into your braggart." Nearly pouted, kicking the sand and turning her face away from the group as her lip poked out.

"Lady Shaena?" the last man finally asked, not moving from where he supported the woman. Lysa quickly nodded, nervously petting at the barely-brown locks that she'd braided back last night before bed.

"She's escaping a man, Oberyn," the captain said, stepping to Lysa's side and slipping her arm around her waist--Ryss took his leave and jogged back to the rowboat to pull it up out of the surf. Lysa tried to not stare, then, for before her stood Prince Oberyn Nymeros Martell--brother to the Prince of Dorne.

"The father of that wee one?" Prince Oberyn asked, making no mention of Lysa's fish-eyed stare. She flushed at his question, ashamed that she had been so reduced to fleeing her lawful marriage. Ashamed that she could not bear even another week with Jon Arryn close at her elbow. He had had half his teeth when they married. Now he'd lost another four or five since becoming Hand of the King. He had been the husband her dalliance with Petyr had bought her and she hated him.

"Lady Shaena, I will--" the man started.

"Oberyn, let her be," his companion said, elbowing him without artifice, "she barely has her legs under her from the journey."

"May I speak with you privately later, then? Lord and Lady Gargalen are waiting on us to arrive, and you must be tired from your journey," Prince Oberyn said, course correcting smoothly and immediately. Lysa nodded, walking arm in arm with Captain Visaena towards a larger group of servants and pages. There was a litter and half a dozen horses--for a moment Lysa feared her hosts would expect her to sit a horse, for the litter was plainly for Oberyn's companion, but Visaena led her unerringly to the litter.

"I apologize for Oberyn, he feels strongly about the plight of women. My name is Malleah," the unintroduced woman said as Prince Oberyn helped her sit down next to Lysa. She managed a smile in return, worry making her babe kick and squirm in her belly. The litter rocked and rolled a bit as it was lifted but it soon calmed as the bearers started to walk further inland.

"Is this your first child?" Malleah's tone was light even as she questioned. Lysa hesitated answering before finally arriving on how she might go about it.

"The first that might live. I--" she knew bits and pieces about the Dornish, more now after her journey on the Stormbearer, but she was unsure how they felt about women who killed babes in the womb.

"You were powerless and when you are powerless you find whatever power you can cling to, I understand, my lady. I did not before I left Dorne, but through much pain I learned." After that they sat in companionable silence. Part of Lysa wanted to shout at everyone to stop--to ask someone to pinch her, to wake her from this heady dream where she was safe and surrounded by long-dead Targaryens.

The keep of Salt Shore, the Salt Cellar one of the riders around the litter called it with mirth in her tone, wasn't grand but Lysa was grateful to see it nonetheless. Ryss had begrudgingly told her of how many Dornish keeps were built--proper castles above, but a warren of underground chambers where the occupants retreated during the hottest parts of the summer days. Somewhere cool to sleep seemed beyond her grasp of late and she craved it.

Lady Gargalen was thick about the waist with a double chin and she fussed mightily over Lysa, insisting that her own older dresses be made available to her--those that fit to be added to her meager belongings immediately, the others made over for her use later in her pregnancy. Before supper she begged some time alone and wept bitterly in her--blissfully brisk--chamber. She had made it. Wherever her fortunes took her now, she had made it away from King's Landing. Away from Jon Arryn. Away from drinking moon teas--rue, tansy, the dreaded pennyroyal that she'd only ingested the once.

A knock startled her but she bid them enter, not bothering to hide her tears or rise from the bed.

The bed dipped as someone sat next to her, a man's large hand settling on her shoulder--jumping away when she let out a short scream, memories of her first year as Jon Arryn's wife flooding her mind. The weight on the bed remained, but her visitor made no more attempts to touch her.

"I would not have stood by, my lady," he--Oberyn Martell--said without preamble. The child in her kicked and turned for a moment and Lysa wished she could have rid herself of it as she had the others--but it was her only safety should her husband find her. She had to have his child with her, or he would send her to the Silent Sisters less her tongue for murdering his heir. The worst of it was that none would blame him or lift a finger to help her. The blame would fall on her, and they would take her only weapon against him. He would be the victim, never mind the six years of suffering she'd endured.

"Everyone stood by," she said, hiccuping through her tears.

"Not me, I am not everyone."

She shuffled to roll over, facing the Dornishman who sat quietly with his hands on his knees, hugging her pillow close under her chin.

"You said on the beach you wanted to talk to me." He nodded, taking in a deep breath before standing and grabbing a small sitting stool from the corner of the room and setting it up near the head of her bed. His eyes were dark brown, black in the candlelight, and there were lines carved into his face from the life he'd lived. He was the sort of person she'd dreamed of rescuing her, the night before her wedding, but he'd not come. No one had come.

"Women...react differently from one another after escaping marriages like yours, in your condition. Some keep the child, some give it up. Captain Visaena explained to me in better detail who you are and what happened to you, which means we must tread carefully."

She stayed quiet, watching him and wishing that he was the kind of man her father had chosen for her. If she was so 'ruined' why not give her to the Red Viper who wouldn't care a whit for who she'd given her maidenhead to or conceived a bastard with. He was even handsome--and had all of his teeth.

"Your husband is one of those painfully proper people that I just hate to meet. You have to bend a little sometimes or you'll bring only woe to those around you," he added with a grin, though it quickly faded from his lips. When he continued his tone was more somber.

"So though I normally just help find homes for the women and their children, I will have Lord Harmon of the Hellholt look after you if you wish it. Or you may live in the Water Gardens near Sunspear, with my children and my brother's family. We must keep you safe, above all," he said, still making no move towards touching her at all.

Lysa watched him for a long moment, digesting what exactly he was saying.

"You won't send me back?"

Prince Oberyn shook his head, a soft smile flickering on his lips.

"We will try to keep you as safe as possible, my lady, but no--we won't send you back."

After a few days rest, where Lysa silently marveled over what miracles had happened that saved the lives of so many, she went with Prince Oberyn and his retinue on their journey to the Water Gardens. She was the companion of Malleah on the litter, the older Dornishwoman being too frail to sit a horse on even her best days. Little Anyse was thrilled, for she was given her own small pony and rode proudly alongside Prince Oberyn. Her eyes were the only thing in her that hinted at her heritage--as dark as an amethyst's heart they stared solemnly out of her face at night when the group gathered around the fireside and listened to Prince Oberyn tell tall tales of Essos and the islands of Sothyros.

The Red Viper was unlike anything Lysa had ever dreamed of being real, not after her wedding to Jon Arryn. There was wit on his tongue as quick as lightning, his morning spars drawing many of the knights and warrior women to either watch or challenge him. Sometimes Malleah would ask slyly if Lysa would help her out to the ring of people who watched him dance and twist on the hard, sunbaked ground.

It took them three weeks to arrive in the Water Gardens--there were no riders storming towards them, no capes bearing the Arryn falcon, when they crested the last hill. Only dunes and the sea itself in the distance greeted the company. The palace of the Water Gardens rose up a half mile from the beach, trees dense around the buildings that rose two or three stories up into the sweltering Dornish heat.

"There is nothing like it on this continent," Prince Oberyn said, dismounting from his horse and walking alongside the litter. Lysa glanced at him and tried to compose herself a bit, to not look like a gawking peasant girl but instead something more like the woman she was. So many beautiful things belied darkness or evil, she'd learned.

"I would have thought you would boast the world," she replied, looking down her nose towards the sea. Malleah laughed while out of the corner of her eye she could see that Prince Oberyn pouted a bit before recovering his jovial attitude.

"I have not seen all the world, my lady, so I cannot say in complete confidence that there is nothing like this place in the world."

"He traveled widely in his youth, Princess Loreza would say to her guests," Malleah said, her voice soft but playful, "because he wished to see all the world--so that he might compare it to Dorne and find the world lacking."

"The rest of the world IS lacking," Prince Oberyn said matter of factly.

Lysa let them continue to bicker, choosing instead to gaze at the softly sloped flat beach and at the huge complex of the palace of the Martells. It was a beautiful place, and she prayed hard that she be allowed to stay. That Captain Visaena and her two children had carried off their latest deception of the crown, and they remained safe. Their safety meant Lysa's own, and that of Malleah and Anyse. She prayed that her escape had not endangered these warm people who had sheltered her and believed her.

Her belly was getting cumbersome and Prince Oberyn had to help her stand from the litter as they reached the palace a few hours later. He gave her a warm smile as he steadied her on her feet, though he didn't otherwise touch her unduly. It made Lysa feel special, cherished in some bizarre manner. Here was a man who had power over her, that of life and death really, but used none of it. Not even in the most innocent of touches.

A dozen or so people waited for them at the doors to the palace, and Lysa tried to place them in her mind. The man who stood in splendid robes, a cane gripped tightly in his hand, would be Prince Doran. She had embroidered the covering for the funeral chest for his sister's bones. At first she'd done it because she hated how idle her hands were in Riverrun, and refused to sew baby clothes for Cat's child when her own had been murdered by tansy. Then, on arriving to King's Landing, she'd found that no one had thought to sew a coverlet for the chest and though hers was a meager offering it was better than sending the chest uncovered as Jon and the King had meant to do.

There was a willowy girl near the prince, her clothes as fine as his own, and could only be Princess Arianne Martell. The fifteen year old had her arm around a much smaller boy--not Quentyn, Lysa knew that that child was close in age to the heir, no this had to be Trystane. There was no sign of Princess Mellario, giving truth to the rumors that that woman had fled her duties as Prince Doran's wife. The part of her that worried over her safety had Lysa cringing just a little for she herself knew why she'd escaped her marriage--had Prince Doran treated his lady wife in a similar manner to how Jon had treated her?

Next to Prince Doran a tall, plain girl stood, her hands on her hips and her chin thrust out proudly. Beside her a woman held a swaddled infant, five other girls of varying ages surrounding her.

"Lady Shaena, please meet my family," Prince Oberyn said, taking the hands of both Malleah and Lysa. He pointed out his brother, niece and nephew, and then turned to the larger part of the group.

"My daughters, Obara, Nymeria, Tyene, and Sarella. My beautiful paramour, Ellaria Sand, and our daughters Elia, Obella, and this," he let go of their hands to lift the babe from Ellaria's arms, "is Dorea, our newest." The infant grumbled at the jostling of her father, but didn't wake enough to be properly upset and Lysa remembered gazing down at little Robb Stark in his crib at Riverrun.

"And soon she will have another sister, by the looks of it," Ellaria said, moving forward to warmly take Lysa's hand between her own, looking over her shoulder at the swaggering prince who was covering his daughter's face with kisses, "Oberyn you might have said, I would have had a room prepared for Lady Shaena." Turning her focus from Prince Oberyn back to Lysa herself, Ellaria's lips split into a mischievous grin.

"He stole into your bower and then returned to steal you, did he not? It was much the same with me to the amusement of my father," she said, linking her arm with Lysa's and leading her up the stairs and through the doors of the palace. The rest of the party trailed behind her while Lysa struggled to find words to respond. Lord Hoster would be less than amused if Lysa had bedded any Dornishman, let alone Prince Oberyn the Red Viper--and furious if that man had then stolen Lysa for the purpose of saving a bastard's life.

But it was no bastard that Lysa carried in her belly--no, she had one of the last heirs to House Arryn squirming in her womb. The child was her last and best piece of armor against the wrath of her husband, so long as it was a son and not a daughter.

"Lady Shaena stole herself, my love," Prince Oberyn called after them, "I am only so lucky to have fallen in with her at the Salt Shore." These words changed Ellaria's demeanor greatly, likely telling her of the ship Stormbearer and its captain. Her grip on Lysa's hand firmed, and her smile was comforting and sympathetic.

"Such bravery," she said for Lysa's ears only before turning to the group and announcing that Lady Shaena and Lady Malleah must be tired from their journeying, that everyone should take the afternoon to rest before supper, and then both Ellaria and Prince Oberyn led her deeper into the palace to their own rooms. As they walked, she peeked at the child that Prince Oberyn held in his arms. The infant had dark skin and a tuft of unruly curls poking out of the swaddling, her cheeks were fat and pinched her lips into a perfect bow.

If they managed to hide here in Dorne, she and her unborn child, this bastard girl would become a playmate to Lysa's babe. She quite liked the idea of a playmate for her little one, of living out her days in anonymous safety and relative comfort, of perhaps flirting and gazing after the handsome Dornishmen she'd seen so far.

Lysa longed for a man to look down at a daughter of hers the way that Prince Oberyn was looking down at his daughter Dorea's face. Ellaria must have seen her glances for she looped her hand around Lysa's waist and she murmured softly into her ear that she was perfectly willing to share if the Lady Shaena was amenable.

Jon Arryn died a few years later, never having found his stolen bride or her unborn child. Lady Shaena of the Salt Shore, though, lived the rest of her days in the Water Gardens surrounded by children--her own son, ostensibly by Oberyn Martell though the man never officially claimed the child, small and waifish as he played amongst the Dornish.

It was not the kind of life a song might sing of, but for Lysa Tully it was more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> So, please let me know what you thought of this!


End file.
